This website was designed for and by English 236: Introductory Topics in Creative Writing - Digital Storytelling and Role-Playing @ UW-Milwaukee
Welcome to the wiki website for English 236: Intro Topics in CW - Digital Storytelling & Role-Playing, offered at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, spring 2013. These students took part in a collaborative digital writing project based on the principles and rules from a role-playing game and set in a post-apocalyptic version of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and surrounding areas). Over the course of the semester, they created nearly 500 unique people, places, and things as they fleshed out this fictional world, including describing its history, economy, social structure and more, and plotted them on a customized Google map with place marks that link back to the wiki. Once the world had been populated, they created characters and explored this fictional world via tabletop role-playing, writing vignette-length fiction from their characters' perspectives. Watch this space or follow us on Twitter @ENG236 as the site continues to grow as new players and storytellers add to it - or get some friends together and explore the world yourself!
To find out what's happening right now in Hellwaukee, check out the News and Notices (and feel free to post your own)
If you have any questions about the course, feel free to email the instructor.
If you would like to 'play through' and want to add to the wiki or the map, feel free to email this guy, who somehow found himself playing alongside the ENG 236 class and is continuing to enjoy and add to the world with his friends.
If you'd like to read some of the stories of Hellwaukee thus far, go to the VIGNETTE & CRITIQUE page, otherwise dig in and enjoy the world we are making...
The Digital Age. Freedom of information will liberate the masses. Yeah, right. It sounds good in theory, but what happens when the network collapses? Cyberwars raged even as we slept, dropping kiloton e-bombs and blasting away more bits and bytes than you could ever imagine. It all happened out there in the ether as we went about our business, annoyed when the TMZ was slow to load on our cell phones. Or so our grandparents say. The ones who survived that is.
Security relies on information. Without the one, there can't be the other. So while we were fretting about YouTube lag and LOLcats being down for days at a time, hundreds of tons of chemical and biological weapons made their way across our borders. The physical attacks didn't need to be coordinated once the network was in tatters, and all it took was a spark to start the firestorm. Whole metropolises burned and democracy collapsed under the weight of terror and confusion. Neighbors clawed at each other's eyes in the street for a last loaf of bread even as disease spread through the crowds mobbing the food vaults.
That was half a century ago and a only a handful of survivors remember those sorry times. It's 2063. We've regrouped, coming together by way of ideology, religion, or simple co-dependence, and not always peacefully. There's the memory of the old world and all that data out there somewhere, like an invisible gold mine floating in the sky waiting to be tapped. Some want to reconnect to that past; others want to eradicate it from memory and start over with a clean slate. What about you? What kind of future do you envision? And more importantly, are you willing to stick your neck out to see it come to pass?
Welcome to Hellwaukee!
This website was designed for and by English 236: Introductory Topics in Creative Writing - Digital Storytelling and Role-Playing @ UW-Milwaukee
Welcome to the wiki website for English 236: Intro Topics in CW - Digital Storytelling & Role-Playing, offered at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, spring 2013. These students took part in a collaborative digital writing project based on the principles and rules from a role-playing game and set in a post-apocalyptic version of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and surrounding areas). Over the course of the semester, they created nearly 500 unique people, places, and things as they fleshed out this fictional world, including describing its history, economy, social structure and more, and plotted them on a customized Google map with place marks that link back to the wiki. Once the world had been populated, they created characters and explored this fictional world via tabletop role-playing, writing vignette-length fiction from their characters' perspectives. Watch this space or follow us on Twitter @ENG236 as the site continues to grow as new players and storytellers add to it - or get some friends together and explore the world yourself!
To find out what's happening right now in Hellwaukee, check out the News and Notices (and feel free to post your own)
If you have any questions about the course, feel free to email the instructor.
If you would like to 'play through' and want to add to the wiki or the map, feel free to email this guy, who somehow found himself playing alongside the ENG 236 class and is continuing to enjoy and add to the world with his friends.
If you'd like to read some of the stories of Hellwaukee thus far, go to the VIGNETTE & CRITIQUE page, otherwise dig in and enjoy the world we are making...
Image from: http://svalts.tumblr.com/post/804033958/steampunk-city-by-marco-rolandi
The Digital Age. Freedom of information will liberate the masses. Yeah, right. It sounds good in theory, but what happens when the network collapses? Cyberwars raged even as we slept, dropping kiloton e-bombs and blasting away more bits and bytes than you could ever imagine. It all happened out there in the ether as we went about our business, annoyed when the TMZ was slow to load on our cell phones. Or so our grandparents say. The ones who survived that is.
Security relies on information. Without the one, there can't be the other. So while we were fretting about YouTube lag and LOLcats being down for days at a time, hundreds of tons of chemical and biological weapons made their way across our borders. The physical attacks didn't need to be coordinated once the network was in tatters, and all it took was a spark to start the firestorm. Whole metropolises burned and democracy collapsed under the weight of terror and confusion. Neighbors clawed at each other's eyes in the street for a last loaf of bread even as disease spread through the crowds mobbing the food vaults.
That was half a century ago and a only a handful of survivors remember those sorry times. It's 2063. We've regrouped, coming together by way of ideology, religion, or simple co-dependence, and not always peacefully. There's the memory of the old world and all that data out there somewhere, like an invisible gold mine floating in the sky waiting to be tapped. Some want to reconnect to that past; others want to eradicate it from memory and start over with a clean slate. What about you? What kind of future do you envision? And more importantly, are you willing to stick your neck out to see it come to pass?
World Building
Factions
Player Characters
Items and Sundry Things
Non-Player Characters
Locations